Mask of Ice
by 2d66
Summary: Anna is a young princess who thinks she knows what love is until fate brought her to the mysterious and beautiful recluse living on the North Mountain. Soon she is enraptured in a love that might be the only thing that can save Elsa from her scarred past. AU; not incest but most definitely Elsanna.


**A/N: **This first chapter gets a little dark and a tad angsty. I don't believe it is anything really bad but I just thought I would warn you. And this is Elsanna so if you don't like it, don't read it.

I do not own Frozen.

**Mask of Ice**, Chapter 1

A young Elsa lay on her bed listening intently as her mother read to her one of her favorite stories. With gleaming eyes she watched as her mother detailed the epic of the Trojan War; listening with envy as her mother described the beautiful face of the Spartan Queen that launched a thousand Greek war ships. The beauty that her mother described was one that Elsa had always dreamed of. She never wished to look like the goddesses Aphrodite or Athena like most would, she just wanted to be normal.

Normal. What did she know of normal?

Ever since she was young she was cursed with the ever burdening powers of winter. She would forever be cold, never having the ability to create anything beautiful. All her powers ever did was destroy.

Her parents loved her, she knew that much, but even they saw her powers as a curse. They kept her isolated and away from others. Elsa had no friends, no one to talk to; all she had were her books and her stories that helped her to cling on to the distant dream of normalcy.

So she always looked forward to these moments where she would be lying beside her mother, listening to her describing a fascinating epic, and doing what normal kids her age would be doing. Slowly, sleep started to overtake the young girl's inner thoughts as her mother continued on with her story. Soon Elsa was fast asleep with all her worries and burdens drifting away.

Carefully her mother closed her book and bent down to lay a kiss on her daughter's forehead. With a smile she whispered a loving goodnight and quietly made her way out of the room.

Elsa woke up with a start. Something tore through her sound sleep and disturbed her, she just had no idea what. Blinking away the haziness of sleep she looked around in an attempt to find what woke her. In her sleep induced state she failed to notice that her room was unnaturally hot and that a slight smell of smoke was filling the air around her. Slowly, Elsa made her way to her bedroom door hoping to step out and find her parents. Maybe she could sleep with them tonight.

Elsa opened her door only to become panicked as flames surrounded her and quickly spread throughout her room. Filled with panic she rushed into the hall, running in the direction of her parents' bedroom.

"Mama! Papa!" Elsa screamed into the smoke filled hall. Flames danced around her vision as she tried desperately to find her parents in the labyrinth of fire and haze. Tears fell freely over the young girl's cheek only to evaporate before ever hitting the ground. The heat was oppressive, overpowering all of the girl's senses.

All she could feel was the heat. All other feelings and senses were overwhelmed by its sheer power. Every attempt she made to move further towards her parent's room was met with more heat. With every step she grew weaker. With every breath her lungs filled with more black smoke.

"Mama! Papa!" Elsa continued to scream as fear gripped her. Her powers began to unconsciously flow through her but the heat from the blazing fire immediately turned her ice and snow into water vapor.

Large crashes started to echo throughout the house as the building started to fall apart. Frantically, Elsa continued to make her way further into the house in a desperate attempt to find her parents. As Elsa finally reached the door to her parents' room she saw that it was ablaze. Undeterred, the little girl brought her small hands up, starting to conjure up as much of her power as possible. Before she could finish, a large crashing sound echoed from above. Looking up Elsa caught a glimpse of a large burning ceiling support beam before it crashed on top of her, making everything go black.

…

Wearily she started to come to, only to wish she hadn't. Her entire body ached, her head felt as if it was split open, and she was lying in a pool of water still pinned down by the fallen support beam. The beam laid atop the left side of her face making her unable to move her head. With great effort she slowly brought her hands up to the beam but quickly found it would be impossible to lift. She was exhausted, hurt, weak, and scared to death.

Panic started to course through her veins, the sensation of being helplessly trapped frightened her. Filled with fear, her powers flowed through her fingers against her will. A column of ice formed beside the blonde's head, launching the beam through the air as if it was nothing.

Shaken, the young girl tried to stand on wobbly legs only for the reality of the situation to finally hit her. Looking around her she was met with the image of what remained of her once beloved home. The smoldering embers and blackened wood stood in the place of the once proud building. Everything was destroyed. All of her books, her toys, her pictures, her home. All gone.

Yet the sight that brought the young girl to her knees laid right in front of her. Just beyond the burnt frame of her parents' doorway was what remained of their bedframe. Atop the burned bed laid two charred remains.

Tears started to flow freely down the girl's pale cheeks as she broke down into hysterical sobs. Crumbling to the ground she wept for the loss of her parents, for her home, for her everything. She had nothing left. She was alone.

Somehow she eventually ended up kneeling by their bed, how she got there she would never know. Elsa looked at what was left of her beloved parents. The sight was so disturbing, she couldn't hold back the bile forming in her sore throat. Even after she had nothing left in her stomach she started to dry heave. The sight of her parents, no what was left of her parents, was a sight she would never forget.

After what felt like hours Elsa's tears no longer fell. She couldn't feel anymore, she was numb. She stood, sparing one last glance at her parents' remains, and started to walk away. She had no idea where she was going, it didn't matter. Anywhere she went there would be more for her there than there was for her here.

The sound of broken glass caused her to glance down. The remnants of a mirror laid on the floor but what caught her attention wasn't the broken glass, it was her reflection. Looking down she could see the left side of her face was burnt badly. In fact, it was practically deformed. Her once smooth, pale cheek was now the deep black of charred flesh and deep, red lines ran across her skin all the way from her upper neck to her temple. The sight of the burnt flesh brought with it the pain that Elsa had, until now, been unaware of.

Quickly, with the wave of her hand she created a crude mask of ice to cover the ruined side of her face. The foggy ice hid the deformed part of her face and the cold helped to numb the burned skin.

_At least both my eyes and ears still work_, Elsa thought mockingly.

Without looking back, Elsa walked away into the wintery night leaving behind the smoldering remains of her once happy life.

**13 years later…**

It all happened so fast, one day the Princess of Arendelle was the sole remaining heir to the kingdom and very single. The next she was engaged to a relative stranger from the Southern Isles. The kingdom quickly began to talk about the arrangement negatively and many of Arendelle's nobles openly opposed the idea. The reason? The Empire of the Southern Isles had long held claim to the throne of Arendelle and had fought several bloody wars in the past in an attempt to finally control the young, yet prosperous kingdom. Therefore, many were opposed to such a quick engagement with the royalty from such a bitter enemy. The King, however, believed it would be a chance to finally ease the tensions between the two nations and possibly secure a peaceful future for his people. Begrudgingly the nobility backed the marriage, and the wedding was planned for only a month later.

It quickly transformed into the social and diplomatic event of the year for the entirety of Europe. Royalty from all over came to visit the union of the two nations. In response, all of Arendelle spent weeks toiling endlessly to transform the small, trading capital of their kingdom into a large, splendid city made for royalty. The Arendellian Army had nearly doubled its size and two new heavy warships were constructed for its navy. The castle staff practically quadrupled overnight, as did the number of diplomatic envoys from the various kingdoms of Europe present in the overcrowded city.

It seemed as if everyone in the world had come to accept the marriage and even unite around it. Well that is except for one: Princess Anna herself.

…

Anna looked at the man standing before her. He was dressed handsomely in a military uniform common among the royalty of the Southern Isles. The lavish uniform, adorned with numerous medals, complemented his broad shoulders and served to enhance the man's already considerable muscular build. He was absolutely gorgeous, even his unusually long sideburns could not detract from his overall looks. Being nearly a head taller than her, he looked down at her expectantly as everything around the pair seemed to stop.

However, the young redheaded princess was too occupied with her thoughts to notice all this. She waged an internal war with herself as the large group of people that was gathered around the two began to grow restless.

It was just so much, so quickly. She had been on one date with him, and by the end of it they were engaged. Anna had become so swept up in the perfection of the date and of the man before her that she hadn't hesitated in the least when he asked for her hand in marriage. She was confident it was true love.

Now, a little over a month later, her happiness faded as reality finally sank in. She was going to get married to a man she barely knew, a man that most of her people openly despised, and a man that she had only kissed a couple of times.

_But it's true love! _She tried to remind herself. At this she regained some of her confidence and brought her eyes up to look into the loving eyes of her fiancée.

Finally gathering enough strength, she whispered the simple, but powerful, words that she had memorized weeks ago but had yet brought herself to say, "I, Princess Anna, take thee, Prince Hans, to be my lawful wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth."

With a wide smile, Prince Hans placed a ring onto his bride's slim, trembling finger while reciting, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow."

Though still utterly torn within, Anna was able to force out a small smile after the two newlyweds parted from the kiss meant to bind them together for the rest of the lives.

_For better or for worse… _Oh how she prayed it would at least be for the better.

* * *

A/N: So yeah this is my first attempt at Elsanna, but I am feeling pretty good about it. This first chapter is kinda short and lacks much dialogue but it was meant to mostly introduce Elsa and Anna. This will be AU and will not have any incest but I will try to stay pretty close to the original characters. Let me know what you think! Like everyone else on here I run off of reviews!

Oh and shout out to Hunhund who helped me get this thing started!


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